A focus area for Collin Sexton may be shooting off screens a bit more, which we saw some instances of from him in year two with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
It’s clear as day that going into his third season with the Cleveland Cavaliers, that Collin Sexton is such a polished scorer. The 21-year-old led the Wine and Gold in that department in his second season, and that was even with Kevin Love active in 56 of 65 possible games.
Sexton had 20.8 points per outing in 2019-20, and while hitting a healthy 38.0 percent of his three-point attempts helped him, so did Sexton demonstrate the ability to change speeds.
That only made him more capable off-the-bounce, and that paid off for him in a variety of ways, and with his speed and quickness, that will only make him more difficult to account for. Sexton getting stronger coming into his second season helped him as a finisher, too.
With what he showed this now-past season, at least from the Cavs’ perspective with them not being invited to Orlando, it’s evident to me that Sexton should be the primary option for Cleveland offensively in 2020-21. That relates to the constant pressure Sexton puts on opposing defenses, and with him still yet to miss a game through his first two seasons, that seems to be a no-brainer at this point.
Another positive regarding Sexton, at least more specifically, was his improvement off the ball, too. Now Sexton still is a piece that’s going to want to get to his spots off-the-bounce often, sure, but with Darius Garland creating for him often, and Love, Larry Nance Jr. and Kevin Porter Jr. some as the season progressed, Sexton made strides off-ball.
Sexton’s cutting feel got better as his second season wore on, and Sexton showed so much less hesitation when it came to just letting perimeter looks fly right off-the-catch, as opposed to being resistant of that in much of his first season.
With more familiarity with Garland, Love, and Porter/Nance in stretches, I expect Sexton to be even more efficient on spot-ups next season, too. He had an effective field goal shooting clip of 57.4 percent on those looks in 2019-20 and placed in the 75th percentile in those situations, per Synergy Sports. It’s safe to say Sexton qualifies as a floor spacer, and should be a high quality kick-out option.
That said, an area that I believe Sexton could develop further is off movement shooting. At least a bit more in coming years, I’d imagine we could see Sexton have some of an uptick in terms of off screen shooting volume/frequency.
We saw some instances of that involving Sexton at times in 2019-20, and more off screen growth would pay off for the Cleveland Cavaliers guard.
Now, I’m not going to say I’d expect Sexton to have nearly the amount of off screen shooting frequency/perhaps volume such as Love, seemingly Dylan Windler (if he can stay healthy) or say, nearly Garland.
That won’t likely be the case, and Sexton will get more of his buckets in other ways, but we saw glimpses of that with Sexton in 2019-20, and he got better in that area as the year progressed. In off screen shooting situations, which came via curls, flares after productive off-ball cuts and/or back screens, for example, Sexton had success on occasions in games.
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In those off screen occurrences, Sexton had an effective field goal shooting clip of 55.7 percent and placed in the 65th percentile, per Synergy.
Granted, the volume was only on 0.7 shot attempts per game, which in turn led to a frequency of 3.7 percent.
When those instances played out, though, Sexton’s improvement as a cutter/off-ball player carried over with his ability to time up his cuts, and with him having more willingness to fire off-the-catch, that translated to the off screen game at times in year two.
That’d pay off more in coming years with a bit more volume, too.
That was something we again didn’t see a whole lot in his second season, but it was more so than in year one, where that was barely the case at all. Then, the Cavs were without Love for most of the season and they did not have the creating presence of Garland.
Next season, I could very well see more off screen shooting instances for Sexton, and I’d think Cedi Osman and/or Windler as off-ball players could even help Sexton as occasional screeners. Andre Drummond, who fully intends to pick up his $28.8 million player option for 2020-21, to go with Love/Nance would be screeners more so for Sexton, though.
So again while I’m not going to expect a ton more off screen volume for Sexton, further development for him in the shooting off of movement department would pay off for him, and make him even tougher to account for.
Hopefully we see Sexton continue to build on him showing some passing growth he displayed more so in what would ultimately be the last month-plus of the season for the Cleveland Cavaliers, too. A key focus area for Sexton is his team defensive feel, realistically as well.
Anyhow, next season, more off screen growth for Sexton with a bit more volume would only make him more well-rounded as a scorer and offensive threat for Cleveland. Those could come feasibly in some instances after sequences following relocation as well.
Plus, him serving as a decoy off of that could play into more productivity for Cleveland in that area also and help the team offense.